Prototype MFT
It's been a long time since I've posted an update. I guess I needed a break to recharge my artistic batteries, and re-evaluate what I wanted. Over the last few years I've not be idle in the hobby. I've been collaborating with Ed over at TFM (Troll Forged Miniatures), helping out with his Kickstarter, and writing up a new game. Once component of this game is a new range of Modular Floor Tiles (MFT) that will be sold by TFM. Here are a few shots of the 3D printed prototype, used to evaluate the product's structure so I can iron out any wrinkles that may present themselves before moving on to detailing;
As you can see from these photos the floor tiles are assembled from two parts: a '40mm' grill floor part (with 5mm border), and a wall part (which when connected covers 5mm of the floor part, the border bit). Using these two parts you can build any type of floor tile you like: cross, T, or L junctions, corridors, and even rooms. The idea is to reduce the variability of stock held by TFM, streamline fulfilment, and make shipping easier via flat-packing. It's a bit like Legos only for Terrain. These two parts will be 'Trollcast' (which is Ed's fantastic spun cast plastic) with each spin yielding around 8 parts. This should keep the costs down. Well that's the concept...
40mm
I made the tiles large enough to take 40mm bases, and I thought this would be enough to accommodate the new terminators, and the 25mm based Genestealers. It's only when I received my 3D prints that I realised there was a problem. I noticed that the Genestealers that came with my original box of Space Hulk were too wide for this 40mm tile. It's only by getting these 3D prints that this issue came to light. The card floor tiles that came with Space Hulk have 30mm squares, and it was easy to fit the Genestealers 25mm base within them. However card tiles do not have walls, and the Genestealer arms are much wider than 30mm! I completely missed that. The Genestealers are far to big for the Space Hulk card floor tiles!
50mm
I'll be redesigning my MFT to 50mm. The floor grill will be made up of 4 x 25mm square grills. This means it will be compatible with a lot of other 25mm based terrain, though it will not exactly be compatible with my original set of Space Hulk. This is a shame, but one day I may come back and do a 30mm based design just for the sheer hell of it (not sure they would be made, but I love puzzles and it would be fun to work it out!). I hope to have a whole range of floor tile types, and as I only need to make a couple of parts it's very doable and low risk. Time will tell is this is idea is as good as I think it is 🙂
Google Adsense 40K style
Well there's nothing to really like about Ads, they usually annoy more than inform, especially when you are concentrating on something else. This presented a bit of a problem as I wanted to add some ads to my sites to see if it would generate some income. I tried to make them subtle at first, but they still stood out like a soar thumb. In the end I decided the only way out was to theme it in some way, and let me tell you the Adsense palette and controls are a wee bit limited. I wanted to blend in with the general 40K theme of the site.
I wanted something that that I could attach to the side of the main content. I didn't want to put the ads in with the content as they generally pisses me off and I don't want to do that to others. By putting the ads at the side, in the black space, if you really hate ads this would allow you to resize the window and cut the ads of the side completely. Seemed like a good compromise if not ideal.
I first thought of a scruffy billboard or notice board, themed to look like it might belong in some hive, and make a feature out of the ads in a tongue in cheek way, but Google dose not let you mess with the ad placement (and you can't really twist them) and so it didn't look right. It would also be too large and distracting, even if you could cut them off, I needed something narrower.
The 'purity seals' popped into my mind - 40K is covered in them!
Thus was born the concept of a 'Adsense purity seal'. I always wondered what was written on them. I have a feeling it's not really an advert, but there again the Imperium is really religious and maybe ads have to be officially sanctioned? The Ad-Mec make stuff and that would be 'holy' to them so why not a purity seal?
Anyway, I hope that it makes a feature of the Ads and makes them more acceptable in some way (I may be going too far in justifying this! But one look at my 40K Concepts Page and you know I also go 'too far' 😀 ).
The purity seal at the moment is a basic mock up. I'm thinking of further theming it with some Imperial icons, but not official Games Workshop icons as this would be going too far and I'm sure it would breach their IP (or at least they would be very unhappy about it). I thinking 40K-esque, or Imperial-esque, perhaps Russian double headed eagles and such (or perhaps Roman icons) to replace the little knight fella.
The seal may also benefit from a metal icon or end to the parchment to give it a bit of weight and round it off nicely. Maybe a skull imprint in the seal and a double headed eagle at the end of the parchment would look good, but I am getting ahead of myself. First things first, should I even be doing this, is it too over the top, and would dark grey text on black be less of an eye soar?
Anyway, what are your thoughts on this type of Ad disguise, and can it be improved?
Please comment, even if brief, and thanks in advance for any input.
Philip
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